


Woodie

by bonehandledknife (ladywinter), Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Series: The Mountains Are The Same [44]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 08:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladywinter/pseuds/bonehandledknife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Woodie: A home made climbing wall.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>The ledge was empty. </p><p>Why was she surprised? </p><p>She blew out a frustrated breath and stared at the ceiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Woodie

**Author's Note:**

> This puts us over 200k. 
> 
> We're probably more surprised than anyone tbqh.

Furiosa blinked awake and, half-asleep, did a headcount that had become automatic. Ace safely near the wall, three around her, and—

The ledge was empty. 

Why was she surprised? 

She blew out a frustrated breath and stared at the ceiling.

Furiosa didn't know why Max wouldn't get involved. Didn't know why he kept leaving, at night. He'd hesitate, look thoughtful, but he still left. Max stayed the night of Ace’s surgery, and she’d thought that might’ve broken through, that he would stay from then onwards and she'd felt so hopeful that next evening after Ace's surgery, when he'd come to her quarters to sleep during the day. When she'd found him wrestling with the crew, seeming relaxed, laughing even. 

Then she'd tried to join in and everything had gone… well. 

Furiosa had told herself that at least he was staying in the room, that it was progress. She might have thought he wasn't interested in being with her and the crew if sometimes, over the time he'd been here with them, he hadn't stayed and watched, watched,  _ watched _ . He’d stay when they started sexing, but snuck only glances, never looking when her eyes sought his. More boldly recently, his cheeks a little red, but intently, as if witnessing was somehow important. She'd even thought she'd seen his blanket move rhythmically, the last time, but it had been dark and  she'd been thoroughly distracted.  

It was a relief to see that apparently it wasn't, or wasn't any longer, the warboys that kept him from being there. She'd worried about that, worried that he'd never join her unless she sent the crew from her bed, which she wasn't willing to do. From the way he was interacting with them now, they weren't the problem. The downside to that was that apparently it was  _ her _ . 

Except he still _ watched. _

That third day after Ace's surgery, he’d watched. She'd wrestled with Kompass on the mattress, encouraged by the cheers and laughter of the others. Just a relaxed, enjoyable rolling, the kind of thing she'd thought might happen when Max was in the middle there. She'd gotten riled up and impulsively pinned Kompass on his back, sitting on his chest with her knees on his arms, and made him watch as she rubbed her clit. The memory of his frustrated little sounds, and the way his hips had twitched up into empty air, still made her feel warm. It had taken little more than a gently trailed nail up his shaft to finish him, after. 

Max had touched himself too, furtively, under a blanket.

Why would he not come over and join them? If only to sleep? He seemed fine the next evening again roughhousing with the crew just before she entered the room, but once again retreating to the ledge once she arrived.

And disappearing before the morning.

She knew it _wasn't_ because he didn't trust her, didn't like her, probably not even because he didn't desire her, but it hurt. 

No matter how much she wanted Max, she wasn't willing to banish the crew from her bed for him if the issue was that he needed to be alone with her, or to separate just the two of them into a solitary corner.  She'd managed to draw him in for sexing that once before Ace’s surgery, but he hadn't really gotten involved, just held her, stroked her face and her head with infinite gentleness while Ace did all the things she liked.

What she liked wasn't always gentle. Now her wounds were healed, the boys were slowly getting less insistent on treating her like she was made of glass. 

She supposed they might have finally figured that out the night she’d sat on Kompass' chest. When she'd had them all watching with twitchy fingers, hands moving on their gearsticks in the same rhythm she used on herself. When she'd heard Max groan softly, and thought she'd seen him touch himself too. And— 

Furiosa had glanced up, right then, snagged a little bit of Max’s gaze and it’d seemed to shock him into coming too. She’d felt it a victory right up until everyone else dozed off and he’d slipped from the room. Again.

_ Oh _ . Hm. Why had the thought not occurred to her sooner? She'd been pinning Kompass in an echo of how she'd pinned Max, in that first desperate fight. 

Maybe that fight was still on his mind?

Was he worried she would set him off in some way, or worried that  _ he  _ would set  _ her  _ off? Maybe both?

She wondered how he'd respond if she did the same thing with him. Judging by how he'd responded just watching it, not entirely negative. Probably shouldn't risk it.

Or maybe... Maybe she was tired of trying to tiptoe around the issue. 

Furiosa gave herself a good long stretch and got up from the bed. It was decided. She had a feral to hunt down.

 

* * *

 

"We should spar."

Max startled a little, glancing aside at her as they walked through the Citadel hallways. It'd been five days since Ace's surgery, three since she had stopped looking like a particularly worried shadow of herself. 

Max had given a lot of blood - he was still not sure what had prompted him to offer his arm to Gale, and his thoughts skitter away when he tried to think on it - but they'd fed him extra, after. He was feeling all right; he was more surprised that she felt up to sparring.

Then again last couple nights she was plenty ‘active’. His sight unfocused despite himself, remembering it, the sight of her pinning Kompass down making him remember how powerful Furiosa was at her strongest and thinking that Ace was right, maybe, that he was overdwelling on it. That between the crew making sure he didn't step wrong and how assertive Furiosa herself was, maybe he wouldn't…

(there was a vague lurking sense of doom, of cars and guns just around the next bend, just another ambush, waiting, waiting

they're waiting for him to look away, or to love too much, or to want to keep something he has no business keeping

_ it's coming, _ the back of his neck told him;  _ it's coming, _ whispered the wind; he’s not sure what it is except it’s making him want to handcuff things to explosions and walk away knowing it’ll  _ burn _ )

…the thing is, Max knew that he was quite mad. But he couldn’t stop thinking the things he was thinking, seeing and hearing the things he did. He'd just been considering if these people could… could deal if he was not… well, if they could handle his type of madness. If they could turn the wheel fast enough through his twists and turns.

If he could tame it enough for them. Or maybe they could beat it down enough for them all.

Max thought about Furiosa’s request for a spar and remembered those three days of endless running and fighting with War music chasing them. Remembered how brilliantly ruthless she could be, even when impaired by injury or lack of weapons or arm.

So maybe this could, could be:

"Okay," he said. He knew the rest of the warboys went to the Pits to spar or fight, but Imperators didn't; too dangerous. Furiosa only sparred with Ace or Kompass, as far as he knew. He'd watched in admiration as the bigger man seamlessly dialled down the intensity until it was challenging for Furiosa without being too much for her still-recovering body. Max wasn't sure he'd be able to do that; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been in any sort of sparring or friendly training situation. 

"Not sure how I'll, mm," he gestured vaguely, trying to summon the words. "How I'll be."

She just nodded, and led the way to a room with mats. He was relieved to see where was no audience. 

"Boots off," she told him, kicking off her own, then unstrapping her arm and laying it aside. Then she kneeled on the mat and waited until he did the same. He watched her warily, uncertain what she needed from him and if he'd be able to provide it. 

"First one to have bare feet loses," she said, flashing him a grin, nodding at the socks he'd been given a few days ago. "Go."

He was still frowning about this strange instruction when she ducked in and yanked him off balance, and he yelped and pulled his feet out of her reach, scrambling to catch up.

He'd been worried he would get too serious, wouldn't be able to keep in mind she wasn't trying to kill him. Maybe she'd realised that, because this strange exercise changed the focus so much that he found himself laughing a few times, trying to defend his feet while simultaneously trying to get to hers. 

She was obviously more experienced in this game than he was, and after a few minutes she crowed triumphantly, rolling away from him, and Max looked mournfully at his bare feet.

"She gives, she takes away," he sighed. Furiosa chuckled and tossed them at him. 

"We play this with the pups. You okay?"

"Mm. Yeah, it's… it's good. Helps."

She nodded, and he knew that this was her way of trying to fix the fight that was still between them, the memories of the desperation, of trying to kill each other.

"Again?"

He put his socks back on and pointedly looked at hers. Nodded. 

This time he got one of her socks, but she got both of his again. She was breathing hard by that time, and flopped down on the mat on her back, grinning up at him. He smiled down at her, his body humming pleasantly with the exercise. She was already recovering, though she was still a little flushed, and the memory of how she'd been in his arms while Ace licked her out suddenly presented itself. 

He looked away, feeling his face grow warm.

He knew she didn't think there was any reason for shame; she'd had sex in front of him without any outward sign of unease, and made it clear he was welcome in the tangled pile of warm, surging bodies if he wanted.

He  _ wanted _ . He just…

She tossed his socks to the side of the mat where his boots were, took off her remaining sock. Kneeled on the mat again. He slowly mirrored her. 

"Let's try it slow, okay?"

"Mm, right," he nodded.

He wasn't entirely surprised when she managed to pin him; he was distracted by the incongruous sight of her bare feet, and suddenly she was sitting on his chest. He froze, and she relaxed, not trying particularly hard to keep him there. 

"This, huh? Max?"

He blinked up at her, his head full of noise, the memory of that fight crashing up against the  _ feeling  _ of her, warm and alive and powerful on top of him. She didn't even have his arms pinned. 

She slowly leaned forward, face close to his. "Max… Max? You with me?"

As if in a dream he saw himself lift his hand to lightly trace it over her throat, no pressure at all. Her eyes drifted shut and she sighed.

"This is okay?" he asked in wonder. 

"Mm."

She leaned into his touch a little, making more contact, though there was still no pressure. "Intent," she murmured. "Changes everything."

"Hmm." He supposed she'd probably spent a lot of time sparring with her crew, over the years. Maybe enough to shed most of her panic reflexes. 

Her face was close above his, and he was overwhelmed with the feeling of her, the trust she apparently had in him, to let him touch her like this.

Max watched as his hand slid up along her jaw, cupped her cheek, and her lips curved up a little, her head tilting into his touch without thought.

"Been…" he hesitated, long enough for her to make a questioning little noise. "Been wanting to, um, touch you."

"Been hoping you would," she whispered. "Is it the warboys?"

"Mm..." Max hummed cautiously because they mattered, but probably not the way that Furiosa was worried about. And not in a way he knew quite how to request. 

"We can tell them to back off, you know. You don't have to, with them." She considered it a moment and said carefully, "Though being in the room still... they'll probably have… helpful advice."

Max huffed a laugh, because he could just imagine being between Furiosa's legs with Austeyr heckling. He wasn't sure what to do with finding the thought more amusing than horrifying. 

She seemed to catch his amusement and looked relieved at it.

"Mm, it’s more been worried about…" he telegraphed the roll, making it slow and obvious what he was doing. Moved them until he was over her, keeping his weight mostly on his knees so she couldn't feel just how hard this was making him. He stayed poised to move off of her the moment she seemed uneasy.

"I think there was a water hose at this point," she mused, not tensing up at the way he was over her. After a long moment, she hooked her leg around the back of his thighs and rolled them again, unbalancing him easily from how he'd been keeping his weight off of her. 

He grunted when she ended up sitting on his hips, knowing his body was responding, knowing she could feel it. 

_ 'Been hoping that you would, _ ' he reminded himself of her words. He had not come upon her in the wastes this time to force her into that moment, pinned. 

He reached up and cupped the back of her head, gently drawing her down toward him. Her eyes went wide, and he suddenly realised that for all the things he'd seen her do with the warboys, he'd never seen her kiss. Maybe that was not a thing? He lifted his head a little and rubbed his cheek against hers, like some half remembered animal, and heard her soft chuckle as she returned the gesture, after a small pause. 

His right hand trailed along her back, gentle at first, then a little firmer, and she made an approving hum. A shiver ran down her spine when he lightly trailed down his nails, and her hips rocked a little against his. 

She gave an interested hum and did it again, more deliberate now, and he made a breathless sound, hips bucking up without his input. 

“Ah, sorry,” he muttered.

Max found his shoulder shoved into the ground by the nub of her left arm as she started looking actively frustrated.

“ _ Why _ ?”

“...??”

“Why are you  _ apologizing _ ?”

He stared up at her.

"I want this. You want this, right?" She rolled her hips against his again pointedly. Frowned suddenly and started moving away, “Unless I’m misreading it. Or the extent of what you want; I know some just want to watch. And that’s fi—”

His hands went to her hips, keeping her from moving off him. 

"I'm, uh, I--" he kneaded her flesh, mouth working on words that refused to form. 

“Is the asking hard?” She asked quietly.

_ Not the only thing that's hard _ , the thought flashed through his mind, and he choked a little. The pressure of her was warm and heavy on his erection, grinding it against his stomach, and he couldn't  _ think _ . 

He rolled them onto their sides, creating some space so his brain would work. 

"You'll tell me?" he managed, "If I-- if you--"

"Yes.  _ Yes. _ "

She surged up and rolled them with a deft hook of her leg, stared down at him. "I don't know where you picked up the idea I'm fragile."

He looked at her, powerful and alive as she towered over him. She was breathing easily, nothing of the terrifying death rattle he remembered. 

"I don't want-- I don't like--" he sucked in a breath, trying to scrape together words. "that I— like. This."

"This?"

"Control. ...rough." His voice dropped soft and ashamed. 

"Huh." She sat upright, looking down on him with a considering expression. He squirmed with unease and looked away, feeling guilty all over again with how exciting it had been, just minutes ago, to pin her. And how it had felt when she'd pinned him with purpose, deliberately grinding against him. 

"Are you worried about me? Or about you?" she asked finally. 

Max shrugged uneasily. "After all you-- I shouldn't want--" He looked away to the side. "Shouldn't like that."

She huffed a breath, and he risked a glance at her. 

"I like it," she shrugged. "It's exciting. Long as it's… friendly, too."

"Mm," he agreed hesitantly. He'd never even really thought of that as an option, that you could be rough and friendly at the same time, until she'd rolled with Kompass the other day, growling and laughing. There'd been such fondness in their faces, even when Kompass had bucked and hissed because she wasn't allowing him to touch her. Max couldn't remember having been as hard as he had been then. 

(except maybe now)

They stared at each other a long moment, and he could feel the tension, the heat of her and the pressure against his body.

His thumb stroked small circles over the small strip of bared skin above the waistband of her trousers, and she made a pleased little hum, her hips rocking slightly. His cock pulsed, and he couldn't help but gasp. 

"I want this," she said, her eyes fixed on his. "I want this with you." 

"Not… not here," he managed finally, hands idly kneading at her hips. "Your quarters?"

"The boys will be there," she mused. 

He nodded. That was good. He wanted them there. It felt safer. 

"Tonight?"  she sounded a little hopeful, and there was a sensation in his chest he didn't know how to handle. 

"Y-yeah."

 

* * *

 

Max didn't know what to do with himself, with the buzz under his skin from touching Furiosa, from knowing he could go to her quarters that night and touch more. Knowing she was counting on it. He  _ wanted _ , nearly ached with wanting it, couldn't stop thinking about how she'd looked directly at him and told him she wanted him. He had no idea how to spend his time until the evening, so he drifted through the Citadel for a while. Wasn't even sure where he was when he overheard a couple of Warboys he recognised from the canyon - the Doof drummers. They had decorated themselves with music symbols. 

“Okay guys, so sometime in the next couple days the women are coming down to drum and sing.”

“What, they can drum?” “Breeders can  _ drum _ ?”

“Yes they  _ can _ , don’t make that face, and the Soundless girls too—”

“In’t Soundless drumming a contradiction?”

“Stop interrupting!” The war boy shouted, “look, they’re not sure at all about coming out to drum. I asked them to."

"Why'd you do that?"

" 'cause they sounded shine, and I wanted to join in."

"You want to make music with the breeders?"

"Yes!” 

“ _ Sweet _ music?” they teased. "You tryin' to get in with them, get to do some breedin'?"

“What? No! I want to make music, yeah. What of it? None of anyone here seemed up to music what with Doof riding off to Valhalla. I just need you guys to behave… right, like.”

“Don’t mess this up for ya, that’s what you’re saying, we get it, we get it.” The Doof Wagon’s crew laughed and jostled his shoulder, “Never seen you this riled up.”

“You haven’t heard them play though!”

And then the teasing went off again, another round of it until the man’s face was so flushed that Max could tell even from under his paint.

A yellow and grey hand printed war boy from the Bullet Farm shook his head as Max passed by him, continuing down the hall...

“Tch, we never had this much drama over at the Farms.”

“Oh?” Kaybar, Max thought that was his name, asked. The war boy was hardly recognizable now, all swirled up and handprinted with different colors of clay.

“Offer up a belt of bullets, maybe a cartridge. If it’s accepted then the bunk’s shared for the night, nothing with all this fuss.”

“You don’t know if it  _ is _ the music or isn’t,” Kaybar protested, “What if Treb’s actually about the music though, what then?”

“What, like it’s your art?” the other war boy asked doubtfully, “it’s just sounds though, nothing physical, that can’t count right?”

“But it’s still  _ art _ .” Kaybar protested.

“Music isn’t even a thing tho, you can’t touch it!”

“If I pull you by the belt you’re still moving right? Even though I’m not touching you direct-like.”

“I’ll move  _ you _ .”

“If that was a comeback it’s pretty rust.”

“That was a come  _ on _ you boofhead--”

The argument degenerated as Max wandered further on, fading into echoes and strangeness that Max didn’t bother examining too closely. Sometimes he still startled, thinking they were imagined voices, but he was getting used to how the Citadel's hallways and air channels warped and made ghostly the sounds of voices, carrying them far past their origins. 

"Kompass says ya gotta keep track of each other, when you're a crew. Try to make each other better."

"Well, we do that, right? I taught ya'll better lancing. We're practicing more at three-bells."

"Yeah. He also says 'Don't be like that one asshole that kept trying to shove crew outta the way to make himself look good'."

"Hah! Whatshisface. With the things. I remember him." 

“We're already a crew, we just need to know how to make the Imperator understand she's our Imperator."

"I think Kompass and Oti both said that they always know where their Imperator is and we should too.”

“Yeah, somebody's always nearby in case she needs somebody."

"Well, if she has a job needs doin' it'd be shameful if she had ta ask. Especially if she had ta ask anybody but us."

A wave of disgruntled-sounding agreement arose.

"Agreed. So we need to make sure somebody's always nearby, so he can call us if we're needed, but not so nearby that she gets annoyed and send us away like she's been doing.." 

"This would be so much easier if she understood she's our Imperator."

“Do you think she doesn’t… actually want crew?”

“Who wouldn’t want crew though?”

Max cringed away a little at the roar of agreement that rose up in response, rushing away from the words until he broke through the last door to breathe, deep, long, and stunned; up in the open air of one of the lower terraces.

The  _ shh... shhh o _ f green things shouldering against each other quieted his thoughts.

Max hauled air into his lungs and the finally open space above his head and took in the views of the horizon and the plains around the Citadel.

“You’d think,” Dag said calmly behind him, “they’d be less noisy.”

Max whirled around, then looked up. One level above them, Tribune Dag was sitting in a half-circle with what appeared to be green thumbs and distro workers, sorting and cleaning veg for the next meal.

“Hunh?”

She gestured below her, at the door. “With all those tunnels freed of all those war boys from this or that over these past thirty days, that they’d be less noisy.”

“Those things always manage to full up on echoes and rumors,” a woman next to her tsked, handing off what looked like scrubbed clean carrots to the boy sitting next to her for the tops to be twisted off. “Don’t matter how many or few there is.”

“People? Or only War boys?” a greenthumb asked as he dropped off a basket and plopped down.

“Both. Either. It’s like thoughts in a head, don’t matter how many, or how good, or how useful they are, they bounce around until the head’s full.”

“Any,” Max cleared his throat and looked away, “Any way you know of quieting it?”

“Why’d you think we’re all up here?” Dag shot back and dangled one of the carrots in his direction. “You too dirty to get your hands dirty?”

"Look at this beaut. You ever seen this colour? This size?" Gilly leaned out from where she’d been hidden behind the tall blond, holding up a carrot of her own for him to see. It looked like an heirloom breed. “We should get Keeper’s seeds in the ground, then see about maybe crossbreeding what works best in this dirt.”

“Well are you joining us then?”

Max had… well there’d been vague thoughts of finding an empty room or hallway to process, to maybe try to contain himself more, guard himself better.

But maybe he would just keep hearing his own echoes if he did that.

The Dag was bouncing  _ two _ carrots now in front of him, impatiently. “Well? They aren’t gonna rub themselves.”

Max made a face at her.  _ Really now? You too? _

She gave him a Look and he stared back flatly.

“Hmm. Got a brush?”

**Author's Note:**

> YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, WE NAMED THIS PART WOODIE, WHAT OF IT.


End file.
